PHI
CD 145: DANIEL IN BABYLON A Monodrama with Music
Music by Francis Jackson Drama by John Stuart Anderson Francis Jackson - Organ
John Stuart Anderson St Peter's Singers Simon Lindley - Director
Recorded at Leeds Parish Church First Commercial RecordingThe origins of this remarkable work date
back almost forty years when the actor, director and playwright
John Stuart Anderson commissioned Dr Francis Jackson, to write
the musical score. This enterprise was undertaken expressly for
the festival arranged to celebrate the consecration of Coventry
Cathedral, in 1962. Daniel in Babylon comprises the Old Testament
story of Daniel, The Burning Fiery Furnace, Belshazzar's Feast,
The Lions' Den, Susannah and the Elders and Bel and the Dragon.
All the characters are portrayed by one actor in a highly charged
Monologue. The matchless, gripping prose of the King James version
of the biblical narrative ensures that these age-old tales come
up startlingly fresh and vivid. The musical score written by Francis
Jackson rates as one of his finest and most expansive works.

PHI CD 146: A TIME OF FIRE Scenes from
"Tyndale's Dream"
A Comedy of Sorts by John Stuart Anderson Lyric drama with music
Music by Francis Jackson
Drama by John Stuart Anderson
Speaker: John Stuart Anderson Organ: Francis Jackson St Peter's
Singers - Simon Lindley, director
Recorded at Leeds Parish Church First Commercial Recording.TWO CD SET - £15.00 inc. p & p
(Ad £1.50 for air mail)

Dr Jackson's score to John Stuart Anderson's evocative drama
on the life and times of William Tyndale was completed on Easter
Day 1967. Five years thus separate this, the second collaboration
in a rare art-form, between actor/dramatist and composer., and
the prototype work in this genre, Daniel in Babylon (already available
on Amphion CD PHI 145) had been devised some half a decade earlier
for the festival in celebration of the consecration of Coventry
Cathedral. Like Daniel, A Time of Fire exists in more than one
form. The stage play (J Garnet Miller, Publisher): Tyndale's Dream
- A Comedy of Sorts needs no music and can be produced with a
cast as small as one. The drama with music was produced, highly
successfully, at a York Festival some years ago and there have
also been semi-staged and concert performances of the musical
score.
Originally entitled Tyndale, the work involves the Choir in a
manner more integral to the narrative than in Daniel in Babylon
where the choral motets fulfil very much the function of an intermezzo
commenting on the main drama as unfolded between actor and organist.
Indeed, the sub-title of A Time of Fire confirms this difference.
Where as Daniel had been described as a Monodrama with Music,
A Time of Fire is billed as a Lyric Drama. (In the play, the chorus
can be spoken in the tradition established centuries ago by ancient
civilisations).
Thus is lyricism at the very heart of A Time of Fire. The humour
and wit in the verbal text is reflected by Dr Jackson in his vivid
score. In particular, the sardonic irony in Scene VI with the
Bishop of London being constantly interrupted by a sarcastic crowd
is especially memorable. Here it is that Jackson quotes Elvey's
famous tune St George (used universally for Come, ye thankful
people, come at Harvest-time). The lines in Anderson's text begin
with those self-same words (heard at their most sarcastic when
they appear in unison at the parodied lines:
Come, ye thankful people, come, While your Prelate thumps the
drum....)
Throughout the work the music makes important use of motifs, or
special thematic material. In the opening bars is heard a striding
motto which might be designated as a portent or menace theme.
This is of ever-increasing importance as the work proceeds as
is the extraordinary and very hauntingly subdued cry 'Tyndale!'
with its four vocal parts (sometimes only two) in contrary motion
left in magically suspended animation musically speaking. Some
of the other material in the strong first scene is also re-used
in a cyclic way later. The cadential valediction: 'Farewell to
life! To love, farewell!' is of great impact at its every appearance.
Just as Anderson's text reflects the subtle changes in environment
as the story proceeds, so the music mirrors these miniature portraits.
Scene II is processionally pastoral and in two simple parts: the
haunting 'Tyndale!' cry and 'Farewell to life'.... are both used.
Scene III is a more boisterous affair, with the choral utterance
occurring, rondo-fashion, between the focussed tongue-twisting
of the vocal lines. Almost Britten-esque sea writing is deployed
to great effect in Scene IV, while the mental haunting of the
titular character is brilliantly done, verbally and musically,
in this chilling number that follows.
Scene VI is among the most evocative in the work, and reference
has already been made to the humour inherent in the appearance
of the Bishop. As befits a work with strong roots in Reformation
times, Jackson provides a convincingly quasi-Lutheran Chorale
in the seventh scene. Here the lyricism of the verbal text is
especially persuasive. There is much to notice in this lovely
movement, but the hearer cannot miss the haunting reference to
the Benedicite with its particular connection to the story of
Daniel in the Den of Lions. The full emphasis of the political
climate in which Tyndale's work was set is clearly evident in
Scene VIII with its vivid tonal centre of B sustained even to
the final recited lines of the choral writing.
Scene IX largely reprises music already heard, while Scene X speaks
of the pathetic tragedy of betrayal, the consequences of which
are devastatingly delivered in the words and music of the remarkable
valedictory final scene. Here come cascading many of the musical
ideas essayed earlier in the drama. The voices - as so often in
Daniel - are used wordlessly to underscore the emotion of the
narrative. At the climax of the work, the 'Tyndale!' motto is
heard with full, terrifying intensity at the very summit of the
drama. This portion of the score is introduced by the portent
theme with which the piece had began. After a distant echo of
'Tyndale!', the main choir returns for an episode un-equalled
in its exquisitely sensitive utterance affirming their important
role here:We are all of the voices of Life,
From Birth through to Death,
All the unseen threads of your Destiny.

Then, Gerontius-like, Tyndale's memorable final lines are placed
against the pastel shades of the musical spectrum:A thousand ages in my hand
Crumble to dust and disappear.
I walk through a strange familiar path,
My fingers touch the outward stars.....
At this point, Jackson presents, kaleidoscopically, miniature
reprises of some of the principal themes: the Farewell theme and
the Thousand Years theme being especially clear, before - arabesque-like
- the magic of the unaccompanied final chorus. Here, Anderson's
text ponders on the eternal Redemption through comprehension of
Holy Scripture which is at the heart of the whole evocative libretto:The Ploughboy that follows his team down the furrow
Shall sing as he goes the Psalms of King David,
Shall know in his heart the Word of Salvation,
The Word of Beginning...
It has been the ability of the co-creators of the work to evoke
vividly in the minds of their fellow performers and of their listeners
this important, eternal truth which has made the infrequency of
performance of this score all the more remarkable. It is true
that there have been notable accounts at the Norwich and Norfolk
Triennial Festival - for which it had been originally intended
- with the Broadland Singers and, appropriately, at the York Festival
and Mystery Plays. A Time of Fire has also received several performances
in Leeds Parish Church and Leeds Town Hall but, like Daniel in
Babylon, surely deserves far greater recognition and more widespread
performance.